Most movies are obvious in telling you exactly what they are or trying to be, but then there are some like Hot Spot, a movie that seems to actively resist being easily understood. Agnieszka Smoczyńska’s (The Lure, The Silent Twins) latest is a bizarre, sun-blasted, wildly imaginative piece of dystopian science fiction that throws cyberpunk, body horror, murder mystery, metaphorical surrealism, and a whole lot of '70s and ’80s aesthetic weirdness into a blender and hits purée. It is absolutely not for everyone, and I’m not even sure it completely works, but there are so many ideas and inspirations stuffed into this genre gumbo that it’s hard not to admire.
Set in a near future where water and energy have become humanity’s greatest commodities, society is ruled by an artificial intelligence known as The Head (voiced by Ditte Berkley). All citizens are connected to it, allowing them to communicate telepathically and essentially live their entire lives through a massive technological hivemind. The Head provides physical resources and stability, but there is a catch: humanity has essentially surrendered its autonomy in exchange for survival. Refuse to participate and you can forget about accessing the basic necessities to live. And whatever you do, don’t forget your daily mandated “jellybean,” because skipping it results in your head literally exploding.
Hot Spot throws a decent amount of weird world building at the wall immediately, but despite the dense amount of info it’s asking audiences to take in, it’s deceptively simple to jump into. Credit where credit is due to screenwriter Robert Bolesto (The Last Family, The Lure). At the center of this story is Jan 623 (Andrzej Konopka), a detective working for The Head who arrives at the scene of a refugee camp to investigate a particularly gruesome, and possibly ritualistic, murder.
Jan also happens to be one of the most stylish characters - dystopian or otherwise - you’ll ever see. With his curly blonde mullet, big hoop earrings, white boots, and ridiculous race-car-driver/superhero-esque tracksuit, he looks like someone wandered out of a parody of an ’80s music video and accidentally drove into the apocalypse. The fact that Europe's “The Final Countdown” plays prominently whenever he drives around only makes him more perfect. I cannot stress enough how immaculate Jan’s hair, makeup, and wardrobe are throughout this entire movie - the fact that Konopka (LARP. Milosc, trolle i inne questy) plays him with full, layered conviction is just the icing on the cake.
Jan lives with his wife Ayka (Reika Kirishima) and their son Zen (George Aurimas Cris) in relative comfort, but even this seemingly happy family is completely beholden to the machinations of The Head. Jan believes connecting Zen is the only option for survival, while Ayka repeatedly disconnects their son from the system for a chance at actual autonomy. Unfortunately, doing so comes with physical consequences, but both mother and son seem to believe the risk is worth it. In the aftermath of one powerful scene, Zen simply says, “I got disconnected. Mom sang to me. It was nice.” It is one of the movie’s sweetest moments, because Hot Spot understands that something as simple as real human connection has become almost revolutionary in this increasingly artificial world.
Ayka is a singer and performance artist, and her voice has the supernatural ability to disconnect people from The Head; at least for a moment of comfort. That becomes particularly important when Jan encounters Rana (Noomi Rapace) during his investigation, a member of an underground refugee community that has rejected The Head entirely. In a type of inverse of the hivemind of The Head, the refugees essentially move as a single collective organism, moving, breathing, humming, and singing in unison. Smoczyńska introduces them early in an incredible long take as they emerge from hiding in plain sight and begin moving en masse, and it is one of the coolest sequences in the film and the entire cinematic year in general.
Because they refuse to connect to The Head and give up their independence, the refugees have been denied access to vital natural resources. Women are also sterilized upon connecting, making their resistance even more horrifyingly literal. Rana, possessing abilities of her own, begins infiltrating Ayka’s mind, with one result being Jan seeing Rana’s face whenever he looks at his wife. From there, the film increasingly abandons whatever sci-fi murder mystery it initially began with in favor of something much stranger and more ethereal.
This movie is gorgeous to look at. Everything is aggressively sun-blasted, dusty, hot, and futuristic all at once. The production design led by Anna Anosowicz is phenomenal, the costumes by Katarzyna Lewinska are endlessly fascinating, and the cinematography by Jakub Kijowski constantly finds new ways to make this seemingly barren world and its characters interesting. The refugees moving in perfect synchronization, the bizarre bug-like larvae used to harvest blood (the less you know, the better), public executions transmitted directly into the minds of citizens, and the hypnotic imagery surrounding Ayka’s underground rave concert are all ideas bursting with creativity in every frame.
There is also some genuinely strong horror imagery here. Exploding heads become a recurring visual motif, and the film’s concept of bodies malfunctioning whenever The Head wills it so gives Smoczyńska plenty of opportunities to turn technological anxiety into visceral body horror ala Cronenberg. The movie’s wild score by Marcin Macuk & Zuzanna Wrońska, which finds creative ways to incorporate the rhythmic breathing from the refugee group, become part of that sensory assault as well.
I suspect Hot Spot will lose plenty of viewers with its deliberately slow, strange, and aural approach at the same time that it will gain some because of it. The second half becomes increasingly abstract, and the film seems far more interested in its ideas and imagery than in making sure its narrative makes perfect cohesive sense. That can absolutely become frustrating, particularly because there is a genuinely intriguing story buried underneath all of the artistic excess, as fun as it may be.
The way that the film ends is certainly a choice. I understand what it represents, and thematically it fits the movie’s increasingly metaphorical direction, but it is also so on-the-nose and bizarre that I only found myself sitting there thinking, “Okay, I guess we’re doing this now.” It’s fitting, sure, but also strangely unsatisfying.
That ultimately describes Hot Spot pretty perfectly. I’m not sure I loved the movie as a whole, but I absolutely loved so many pieces of it. There are enough ideas, images, sounds, costumes, grotesque deaths, and cool sci-fi concepts here to fuel several movies. Smoczyńska clearly has no interest in playing it safe, and I will always take a movie that swings wildly and occasionally misses over one that never tries anything interesting in the first place.
Hot Spot is messy, strange, hypnotic, and thoroughly screwy. I’m still not entirely sure what the hell I watched, especially with its final act, but I’m definitely still thinking about it, and that counts for a lot.
‘Hot Spot’ is now playing in select theaters.
